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A time machine story

Reported in yesterday's Daily Telegraph; and the second of these to be noticed by me in the news media in a week. The aspect that catches my attention is the statement that "Dr Who is still fighting the time war", which is I think the first time that I've seen this item of the mythology, effectively introduced by Russell T Davies, treated as a standard aspect of the character in a newspaper article not written to promote or comment on the series.

As Lance Parkin comes close to observing, and as you have noted in the past, Davies enjoys manipulating different levels (as I think he perceives them) of folk memory of classic and recent Doctor Who. At least he credits people with such memories - I think Gareth Roberts has stated that, when he was a script editor on Coronation Street in the 1990s, it was assumed that the audience's memory went back no further than six months.

I think Gareth Roberts has stated that, when he was a script editor on Coronation Street in the 1990s, it was assumed that the audience's memory went back no further than six months

IIRC, it was in a DWM interview years ago in which various fans in the TV industry were asked what they would do with a new series of Doctor Who. As they included Davies, Cornell, Moffatt, Roberts and Gatiss, it has been interesting to turn back to it and see how little they deviated from the ideas they set out there. I'm not quite sure whether that indicates a clear, strong artistic vision or a conservative sense of the programme's nature and an unwillingness to challenge contemporary audience expectations.

Other chronicles

The Quest of the Parrot Knight

Journal of a knight in time

The memoirs of Sir Guinglain Le Parrot, sometime of the court of King Arthur, transported by means unknown to Brooks's Club in the 1780s, and facing a challenge to a drinking contest from Charles James Fox. To the Buff and Blue, and the Good Old Cause of the Whigs!